Promotional give aways in the form of coupons provided on purchased products are becoming more and more popular. These promotional give aways can take a number of different forms. For example, many products are provided with coupons towards future purchases. Often times these coupons are however hidden at the time of purchase and are only made available after the consumer has opened the purchased product.
Instant prizes are also a vary common type of promotional idea. Again, the prize winning information is not available until after the purchased product has been opened by the consumer.
Not only are there different types of promotions but in addition the means of providing these promotions may vary. Again, by way of example, there are a number of different types of promotional cups presently on the market. These promotional cups generally have some type of a tear away region which is used to hide information on the cup.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,085 issued Oct. 16, 1979, describes a cup blank having a tear away tab at the vertical seam of the cup. This tear away tab can be used to hide certain information either on or beneath the tab.
A similar arrangement is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,827,620 issued Aug. 6, 1974. Again, in this patent a tear away tab is provided at the vertical seam used in securing the blank to hold the cup together as a unit.
Canadian Patent 1,178,904 issued Dec. 4, 1984 describes a cup having a "proof of purchase punch out tab" in the side wall of the cup. A similar arrangement is described in Canadian Patent 1,201,666 issued Mar. 11, 1986 where once again the tab is punched directly out of the side wall of the cup.
In all of the arrangements described above, the tear away part of the cup is limited in size and therefore not capable of hiding or providing much in the way of information. Furthermore, in much of the prior art, the tear away parts are secured at one end only and therefore, anything printed beneath them is not truly hidden and can be seen by simply lifting the tear away part. In addition, in an arrangement such as that found in Canadian Patent 1,178,904 noted above the removal of part of the cup wall renders the cup unuseable.
In another cup design which has been in the marketplace a separate pouch of pocket is formed on the outside of the cup wall and this pouch or pocket is then ripped open to provide either coupons or game winning information. This particular cup design suffers from the drawback that it is complicated to manufacture because of the separate step required to provide the pouch or pocket and furthermore, the pouch or pocket is generally quite small in size and usually not capable of hiding or providing much in the way of information.
Canadian Patent 692,744 issued Aug. 18, 1964 shows an interesting box design specifically useable as a pill or medical box.
In this particular box design, it is the last panel that is provided with the adhesive used to secure the entire box together. Therefore, in getting to the inside of the information panel, the entire box must be ripped apart once again rendering it unuseable.